I'm not sure that this was ever announced. Its been in testing for a while. I thought I better try it before moving it out of testing.

Generally, it works pretty well. However, there are a number of icons missing when the new theme is loaded. As a result, the file manager launcher on the panel, and the VasmCC icon are both missing. Those can be replaced, but the other one I'm missing is not one that can be fixed - the mixer plugin icon is also missing.

I also notice that the option to enable system sounds (which appears in Settings > Apperance > Settings ) is not available. Does that mean that the option has not been compiled in?

There are also some other system icons missing (things like the icon for .tlz files, as well as some on the main desktop menu - browse with GQview, create tar.gz, create tar.bz2.

I have had XFce 4.6.1 running on two computers for several weeks or maybe months. The missing icon problem has been noted on this board and the solution is simple but not obvious. I've never looked into the system sound thing. The mixer plugin icon can be fixed, by the way. The solution is given on the board. Sorry I don't recall what the solution was, but it's easy once you know what to do.

It would be nice if the icon problem were fixed before the package goes out of testing.--GrannyGeek

I have had XFce 4.6.1 running on two computers for several weeks or maybe months. The missing icon problem has been noted on this board and the solution is simple but not obvious. I've never looked into the system sound thing. The mixer plugin icon can be fixed, by the way. The solution is given on the board. Sorry I don't recall what the solution was, but it's easy once you know what to do.

Thanks for that - must have missed the original messages. I've found the reference and I'll try it - reinstalling the high-color icons shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'll try it shortly.

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It would be nice if the icon problem were fixed before the package goes out of testing.

That's one of the reasons that I brought the matter up in the first place.

Reinstalling the highcolor-icons package has fixed the problem with the mixer icon.

One other peculiarity I've noticed is that most of the items in the the System menu are now also appearing in the Settings menu, though the items in the Settings menu are not mirrored in the System menu. Weird...

Well, I've come up with a crippling problem with Xfce 4.6.1. When I restart, I get a blank screen after Xfce closes, lasts until the machine restarts. I could live with that, but what is also happening is that the screen is being forced into low brightness mode, and the only way I've been able to get it back to normal is to start Vista before I do anything else.

I've no idea what the problem is. I doubt it is Xfce directly (I'm running Xfce 4.6.1 on both Zenwalk and Salix on the same hardware without any problems), but either something in the way Xfce has been built or a dep pulled in by the install is causing major hardware problems for me.

The problem with the icons is that Xfce 4.6.1 supports the Tango Icon theme only so far. The developers said that Tango was the only theme compliant with the XDG standards (set by freedesktop.org). Because of this, we have to set Tango as the default theme for Xfce, but for some reason that makes some of other icons to dissapear (I guess they dont have a Tango icon). The hicolor theme issue is another story. The Xfce4 packages have a small snippet in the doinst.sh file for rebuilding the icons cache, however I have hit the problem with the mixer icon also, looks like some package is corrupting the cache somehow. We will have to trace that, and include the snippet in all our future packages with hicolor icons.

About that last issue Paul, I dont have a clue. I trace deps simply by doing slapt-get -i -s some_package. We can try to do some magic by parsing PACKAGES.TXT with a script, but I am not sure what are we exactly looking for.What are the package in your cache? Maybe we can find a clue there. Also you could try launching Xfce from a terminal or with strace, maybe we can get some more debug info. It looks more like a framebuffer issue to me.

EDIT: I forgot about brightness, try to play with the xfce-power-manager package. Uninstall/reinstall, there is also a lcd brightness plugin that provides a UI for it. I think that all these features depend on hal, is hald running?

« Last Edit: December 07, 2009, 12:27:38 pm by rbistolfi »

Logged

"There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite."Jorge Luis Borges, Avatars of the Tortoise. --Jumalauta!!

The problem with the icons is that Xfce 4.6.1 supports the Tango Icon theme only so far. The developers said that Tango was the only theme compliant with the XDG standards (set by freedesktop.org). Because of this, we have to set Tango as the default theme for Xfce, but for some reason that makes some of other icons to dissapear (I guess they dont have a Tango icon). The hicolor theme issue is another story. The Xfce4 packages have a small snippet in the doinst.sh file for rebuilding the icons cache, however I have hit the problem with the mixer icon also, looks like some package is corrupting the cache somehow. We will have to trace that, and include the snippet in all our future packages with hicolor icons.

Sounds reasonable.

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About that last issue Paul, I dont have a clue. I trace deps simply by doing slapt-get -i -s some_package. We can try to do some magic by parsing PACKAGES.TXT with a script, but I am not sure what are we exactly looking for.What are the package in your cache? Maybe we can find a clue there. Also you could try launching Xfce from a terminal or with strace, maybe we can get some more debug info. It looks more like a framebuffer issue to me.

My local cache includes all the new Xfce (and related - such as dbus, etc.). I suspect that something (prime suspect at the moment is something in the deps list for deluge) has been built on a system with the new Xfce packages installed, and since they're in my local cache, they got pulled in when I allowed the deluge update. I don't think its deluge directly - the deps for it look ok, but there is something....

As for a framebuffer issue, there is certainly some interaction with the framebuffer. I normally start VL with 'vga=870' (1280x800). I installed the latest kernel, hoping that might help, and screwed up the 'vga=' line so it started in non-framebuffer mode. In that case, I lost all video output when I exited from Xfce, but the brightness wasn't affected when the machine restarted. Fix the 'vga=' command and not only do I lose video output, the screen is in dim mode when the machine restarts.

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EDIT: I forgot about brightness, try to play with the xfce-power-manager package. Uninstall/reinstall, there is also a lcd brightness plugin that provides a UI for it. I think that all these features depend on hal, is hald running?

Tried that, didn't help. I think I need the function buttons, which I've not got working under Linux. I guess I need to investigate the Thinkpad buttons package (can't recall what it is called, and was too lazy to try building it before). Attempting to adjust the LCD brightness from the xfce-power-manager package doesn't help at all. Though I'm not sure that I've got the brightness plugin installed. I'll have to check that. Hald is running, so that shouldn't be a problem.

So far, I've tried installing the latest kernel (didn't help, and made the machine pretty sluggish), and the latest Intel driver, which would not load (built against a later Xorg?).

Anyway, for the moment, I have a nice new install, which is working, just so long as I don't let any trace of Xfce 4.6.1 near it, and space to install and experimental 6.0 Standard install to see the problem can be tracked. Eventually, I'll use it as a clean 6.0 Light install for building - my current build environment isn't as clean as it could be.

I just reinstalled VL 6.0 Standard, brought it up to the latest paches, then installed Xfce-4.6.1. Only the direct deps for Xfce, no other packages.

Exactly the same problem - as soon as I select restart or shutdown and exit from Xfce, I get a flash of video noise, then a blank screen. And when the laptop restarts, the display is dimmed, and can only be undimmed by starting Vista. Not a good combination at all....

I guess I'll have to reinstall again, then add the xfce-4.6.1 deps one by one and see if any of them have this effect.

Hmm. Ok, I decided to try simply replacing Xfce 4.6.1 with 4.4.3 (which was already in local cache). After completing the reinstall, CTRL-ALT-BackSpace to restart X, and no further problems with the blank screen. So, I would have to say, whatever the problem is, its directly related to how this version of Xfce 4.6.1 is built.

I've tried strace, but the trouble is, if I use TUI login or 'init 3' to kill GMD and then run 'strace -fxfce.log startx', the problem doesn't appear - tried it a couple of times, and when Xfce exits, I get a normal (framebuffer) console screen.

Is it possible to modify the init so that strace is running on both GDM and Xfce? I'm begining to think its some sort of problem that is set off by the interaction between Xfce and GDM.

Hmm. As an experiment, I've just installed Xfce4 4.6.1 on to SOHO B2. Its missing a few things (no sign of the mixer, for instance), but it shows no sign of the video problem I've been seeing on 6.0 Standard.